Darkness and Light
by DreamEscape16
Summary: Bucky searches for his existence, but he knows that it lies in a eyes of a good man who he thinks is a ghost in the shadows.


**Darkness and Light**

**All Captain America characters belong to Marvel Comics**

**I own nothing**

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><p>Glimmers of light shone in the depth of his steel azure colored eyes; Bucky sat at the vacant bar alone with his raging, torrent thoughts, disintegrated and jaded pieces of distant memories of slaughtered lifetime.<p>

Numbness of olden pain clogged through his veins, his broad and chiseled cheekbones were coated with grime from his restless nights of salvaging his existence in the shadows. Bucky spent his days, searching for the reason to live. He struggled to grasp fragments of damaged memories beyond the interface HYDRA programmed into him. His mind was in a stationary relapse. He was a broken man, a battle hardened drifter and a forgotten, looming ghost who had desired to be found in the light.

Pain hammered against his skull. The dull ache of filled the marrow of his bones, as he tried to erase the lingering images of his torturous past.

The displaced wanderer dared himself to close his eyes; to seal off his swimming vision from the strange world around him as he entered the murky void of mindless and vague flashes of memory of being strapped on an operating table, trapping in an eerie laboratory and cloaked by a different light coloration of green. The enthralling voices of German HYRDA agents condemning him to the coldness of experimental serums; penetrating deep in his throbbing bones.

He starved for days, feeling hunger betray his defiant spirit as various contraptions, tubes and syringes entered his veins, and if he fought or screamed out a blood churning cry for his freedom away from the horror, he would receive a fist from one of the assistants rammed into his skull, and taste the metallic tang of blood drip over the walls of his dry throat. The noxious voice of Zola still pounded in his ears.

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><p><em>The light of the waxen moon streamed over the iron-barred windows of the laboratory, droning hums of machines echoed through the shadows, and green haze from the muted bulbs reflected over his sweat-slacked brow. Sergeant James Barnes had layed strapped down on a medical table, his head resting on leather cushion, and slender body confined underneath tight straps. His throat was raw and breath cracking as he parted his chapped lips and gathered the stale, dense air into his lungs.<em>

_Opening his feverish pale blue eyes, James captured the eerie glow of misty light inside his dilated pupils. He was entrapped in a stage of delirium, head pounded with trepidation, muscles ached and voice was locked away. Everything blurred around his restrained frame, he swayed his head against the cushion, mumbling out incoherent words –his tongue grew thick and stomach tensed with churning knots of dread._

_"Now, Sergeant," the cryptic, nefarious voice of Doctor Armin Zola wafted in the thick darkness. The Swiss scientist stood in the doorway, his stocky frame covered in a gray lab coat, a vest underneath, white shirt and a red bow tie attached to the collar. His golden pocket watch shimmered in the glow of moonlight, and he moved closer, his inhumane eyes glared down at his captive with a meticulous gleam behind framed glasses._

_Zola circled around the table, analyzing Bucky while flipping through pages of a small leather covered notebook. "Your services to HYDRA have been very displeasing –your strength and unbreakable defiance is leaving you, James Barnes, and without proper food intake you will starve to death." He twisted his chubby face into a lethal sneer. "I have discovered a way to make the zero sum of your life more valuable to us—you will become a new breed soldier for HYDRA's new world order—you're the first of many to sacrifice your freedom."_

_Bucky turned his head slightly, parting his full lips, and he looked up at Zola with glistening blue eyes. Tears of smoldering anguish fell steadily over his temples. "What?" he paused and struggled to spit out his words. The mindless torture, starvation, and isolation he endured were making him become too weak to function. He swallowed thickly, "What are you going to do with me?" he hissed out, his voice rough and strained._

_Zola kept silence, taunting him with a serpent glint in his merciless gaze. Bucky gritted his teeth and refused to entertain the harrowing thought that he was the deranged –yet brilliant man's newest obsession, and that he would become a butchered husk for HYDRA. He refused to think at all about his arising situation, and didn't allow the pain consume in his veins to avail. Raging thoughts emerged from the crimson fog in his mind, with pounding chants. Get out of there, save the other POW's; find a way to go back to Brooklyn—back to the skinny punk. Go back to Steve._

_"No!" Bucky screamed, lashing out after Zola. His blue eyes became vicious and dark, as he seethed against clenched teeth. "I won't let you win, you sick German bastard." He spat out, a growl emitting from the depths of his throat. He yanked against the straps, squeezing both of his hands into firm balling fists, and lifted his wrists inches off the table._

_"On the contrary, Sergeant." Zola chimed back, his chubby fingers patted over Bucky's swollen jaw. "We have already won." he whispered in a sinister tone, and nodded mutely at one of his assistants pacing closer to the table with a filled syringe clutched steady in his gloved hand. "You and your precious Captain America will be sharing a cold future together, once the new breed serum transcends its full effect."_

_"Steve!"_

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><p>The brutal sounds of electronic drilling searing into the deep ivory of the marred bones of his left arm, slicing scarred tissue with butchering tools.<p>

The vague stench of metal smoldering and burning against sauntered plates of flawless alloy; twist of various wires planted in the empty spaces. The dire sounds of his weakened voice mustering up anguish cries, feeling every rattled nerve protest against the surgeon's cold hands.

Punctures of syringes penetrating through the layers of his blemished skin, tubes shunting through his veins, replacing blood with raw, toxic slime that wormed against his heart. He was pulled in and out of daze, unable to control his emotions, his functions as they transformed and maimed him into an obedient animal. An inorganic monster with no light welling in deaden blue eyes.

His reward of being locked inside in pod -frozen in a frigid, icy and consuming state of hibernation until he was reawakened from his coffin, strapped in a chair after the process of defrosting and heating up his blood. He was restricted by unbreakable shackles, forced to bite on a rubber mouth guard and feel metal probes encompassed over his temples, pulsing shock waves and draining whatever humanity lingered in his brain.

His work was a gift to humanity. Bucky was a revolution of new seize of power. A calibrated reformer of new breed of justice. The purpose infused in his mind was to cleanse the world, rake off disease and level old structures of power with the dark shadows of terror. He was automatically ordered not to care about the endless screams and pleas as he pulled the trigger, sliced throats and create firestorms. He was a wraith. A manifestation of horror that was as cold and merciless as a winter tempest.

He had no reason to live. He didn't deserve that small chance of hope.

Blinking, Bucky pulled himself out of the red haze of his past sins, and finished his drink. He left a fancy tip for the bartender, and hung his head low, a few limp, chestnut and disheveled strands of his unkempt shoulder-length fell like curtains over his dismal blue eyes, and full lips became a frozen line of hardened sorrow. He was torn between the division of fate and existence; his handsome face contorted in a visage of a feral, untamed and tortured beast.

His metal knuckles clenched into a tight fist. He was expecting another night of wandering in the darkness and trying to gather pieces of a stolen life. He slid off the stool, and thumped his boots methodical and ghost-like to the exit doors, ignoring the arrogant stares of patrons watching his systematic movements. He didn't care about those condemning eyes of the world, hell; he knew this was his punishment.

Feeling himself unravel into mixtures of emotions, he wanted to let loose a gritty, baleful and excruciating scream that would tear his soul to a million shreds with blood churn and ear -shattering volume of distress. He was tired of running and serving his days in isolation. He wanted freedom from the red abyss, but he was ashamed of his past, confused and condemned to withstand the hate and face the resurfacing horrors that echoed in his heart.

He felt the urge to cry, to allow all the pain to depart from his body. He wanted to fall back into a blank state and sleep forever.

Then, a familial presence jostled his bones; Bucky lifted his head, his blue eyes glistening with pained tears as he trained his gaze on a tall figure in the doorway. He blinked a few times to regain clarity, and felt his watery lips fold into a frown. The man was broad shoulder, standing a towering height of six-two inches, his body mass bulked with rippling muscles of raw strength and dirty-blond hair shorten and buzzed slightly from the hairline. His face didn't carry the same warmth and unbreakable defiance of the man on the helicarrer did, this face was filled with anger and rugged grief. His sharp jaw line swathed with a stubble dusting over chiseled skin, and his clothes were motorcycle leather and dark denim. He did not look like that uniformed soldier.

"You're not him," Bucky murmured brokenly, tightening his lips as he tasted the salt of his tears. "You're not the man on the bridge." he blurted out, flexing his jaw with disdain rippling through him, but he chanced another look, leveling his fierce blue eyes with the other man's stern gaze. Something was familiar about the face in the doorway, he focused intently, skimming over the details and then met the cool azure eyes burrowing with intensity into his skull. He swallowed, and advanced methodically closer with timid steps.

Bucky sighed, drawing out a deep breath. "Are you really him?" he asked, searching for the truth. "The man who wears the colors of America's flag?" he stammered out with a soft stain of unused voice.

The man scoffed at his words, giving him an intimidating glower, before he walked over to the bar, treating the confusing assassin like a shadow...Nothing else.

Bucky narrowed his eyes to the floor and nodded mutely, "Sorry, I asked." he whispered, slipping into the darkness, and he didn't notice the motorcycle rider turn his head around to look at him with a shining gleam breaking through the clouds imprisoning his gentle, crystal blue eyes.

"Bucky?"

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><p>The violent downpour pelting over his body; Bucky sat rigidly at the curb across a vacant motel, with his knees tucked to his chest, and allowed the drops of rain wash his tears away. He sniffled, feeling his heart swelling and raging thoughts create an illusion that Steve Rogers did not survive...That he killed the man who knew his name with his own flesh and metal hand. Doubt controlled his emotions, as he contained to sob, not paying attention to the roaring sound of motorcycle driving to the curb. He looked down at his metallic digits and released a bellowing snarl, slashing his hand into the water. "I'M SORRY!" he screamed, making his lungs explode in his chest.<p>

He fastened his eyes, lowering his head slight as sloppy tresses touched the corners of his quivering lips. He slipped out his combat knife as his metal fingers clutched over the spine, lifting the blade to his throat. He gritted his teeth, mind became polluted with images of frail blond haired boy with bright blue eyes smiling in the sunlight, and calling him by a name that had always been engraved on his bleeding heart.

Bucky.

"Steve," Bucky's strained voice carried through the sheets of rain. He felt the coldness of the blade lightly touch his pulse. He didn't want to shed more blood and take more lives. He wanted to finally be with his friend. "Forgive me...My friend. Forgive me."

Before, he sliced through the skin, the same circular shield of red and blue whizzed passed his head and landed into the back of van, cutting through metal.

"Drop the knife, soldier." The rider spoke in a commanding voice.

Bucky whipped his head alarmingly up, and locked his teary eyes on the same man he had seen in the bar, saddling on the motorcycle. He stared at the powerful blue eyes glaring him down. "Steve?" he gasped and dropped the knife, and felt the prompting to race to the man, and he did without any hesitation. He parted his lips, "You're alive?" he yelled out, sloshing his heavy boots into the puddles, and his eyes shined with gleaming hope.

Steve dismounted himself off the bike, threw his helmet down, and raced to meet his best friend dead on; knowing the collusion of two super-soldiers could be earth shattering. He opened his strong arms, welcoming his friend back home, and Bucky lunged at him with direct force and knocked him off balance.

"Steve," he said in a broken voice, wrapping his arm over his friend's solid shoulders, his metal fist pressed in the center of the other super-soldier's back, as he held on to Steve tight, closing his eyes, as he felt the warm of Steve's arm shield over his back into a brotherly hug.

"Steve, you've changed..." Bucky couldn't finish his sentence, as he scrunched the drenched leather and rested his chin on his friend's right shoulder.

"We both did, Buck." Steve replied, fighting against his own tears as he kept Bucky in a secured embrace. He hoped that the Winter Soldier would finally become restored back into his best friend...His Brooklyn brother. James Buchanan Barnes. "We both did."

Bucky's pale blue eyes welled with more tears, as he felt the essence of a smile broke over his grim frozen and soggy features. He laughed for the first time in seventy years, he released his happiness.

He wasn't alone. He had Steve to guide him back into the light.


End file.
